Until a few years ago there was a great competition on cloud services, with the release of many services that to bring new members were promoted with more and more gigabytes of free space for all members. Today the competition has stopped a bit, with some cloud services that have become almost industry standards, due to their reliability and the speed with which they make the transfer of data possible.
A cloud service is the one that makes it possible to keep a certain amount of personal files so that they are always available from any computer used and also on the smartphone.
Furthermore, through the related applications and programs, it is possible to synchronize the files so that, in addition to the cloud, they are always the same on each PC where the client is installed.
READ ALSO: What does "Cloud" mean
A cloud service, therefore, is super useful for keeping a copy of the most important files such as photos or documents, for creating an archive of multimedia files made of music and movies, for sharing files between different computers and with other people.
The best cloud services must not only be fast in uploading and transferring files, but must also ensure full privacy and data security, with the double guarantee that personal files are never removed and that they are not visible even by company employees.
Below, we see the best cloud services that offer free, reliable and secure space, which also have the related apps for Android mobile and tablet, iPhone and iPad.
READ ALSO: Best Cloud drive apps
1) Dropbox is a bit the pioneer of cloud services, available for all platforms with apps for smartphones and tablets and synchronization programs for PC, still today among the most appreciated for the reliability and speed of data transfer.
Dropbox is a commercial cloud service widely used by companies also because it can be expanded through various applications for Dropbox.
The free account offers only 2 GB of space for new members, while paid plans start from 1 TB to 9 Euros per month approximately.
2) Google Drive is perhaps the most convenient cloud service if you don't want to spend anything, because it offers 15 GB of space with a Google account (even if the 15 GB space must be shared with Gmail).
Keep in mind that if we have a Google, Gmail or Android account, we already have a ready-to-use account on Google Drive.
Google Drive also has Google Docs applications (with the Docs, Sheets and Slides web apps) and many other Google Drive apps and extensions that make the Google cloud service more than just a drive, but just a cloud platform.
Google Drive can be downloaded as an app for iPhone and Android and as a PC and Mac program for synchronizing files.
With a subscription starting from 2 Euros per month for 100 GB.
3) Onedrive is Microsoft's cloud service, available for Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone PCs, which has the great advantage of being already installed in Windows 10.
Onedrive offers 5 GB of free space for all new subscribers (while the old ones, depending on when they registered, can find themselves 7 or even 25 GB of space without having spent a penny).
Onedrive works well, integrates in Windows and with Office programs natively, also allows you to synchronize files between Windows PCs and remotely access all the files on your computer.
Paid plans start at 2 Euros for 50 GB of free space.
Onedrive, however reliable, still remains with some shadow from the point of view of the privacy of the stored files, because Microsoft does not want illegal files or adult photos to be saved, giving a clear indication of checking what is uploaded online.
4) PCloud is a little known name, but a great cloud service for several years which has some characteristics of great importance.
First of all, you can register for an account and get 10 GB of free space right away, which you can increase to 20 GB by inviting friends to join.
The cloud space is perfect to be used to save music and videos, since it is then possible to listen to streaming music or watch videos without downloading them from the pCloud apps for Android and iPhone (also with Chromecast support).
PCloud also offers a part of its space to store files in an encrypted folder, so that no one can know what's inside.
Paid Plans start from 4 Euros per month for 500 GB.
PCloud does not impose restrictions on the size of a file, so you can load anything you want, up to filling the available space.
5) Amazon Drive is not a completely free cloud service because it still requires you to log in with an Amazon Prime account.
If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber you can then use the 5 GB space of Amazon Drive to save videos, documents and music and then also an unlimited space for photos.
By paying 70 Euros per year, you can have a subscription with unlimited space.
6) Box is one of the most popular cloud services for many years, Dropbox's competitor for paid plans, which offers 10 GB of free space for new members.
The shortcoming of Box is that it is not exactly the most convenient for single users as it is very company oriented.
In addition, the free plan has the limit of individual uploads, with a limit in the maximum size of each file of 250 MB.
By paying 4 Euros per month you remove this limit and buy a 100 GB space on the business plan.
7) Mega is one of the most generous cloud services ever, with the possibility of being able to upload online for free occupying a maximum space of 50 GB.
In addition to the apps for Android and iPhone, the files can be synchronized in the Mega cloud drive with the Mega Sync program.
All files are protected with end-to-end encryption when sharing a file or directory with other people
The paid plan starts from 5 Euros per month for 200 GB of space.
Mega is clearly the best free cloud storage service right now.
8) Hubic is another cloud service that offers as much free space (25 GB) to use as you wish, to save online videos, photos, films and files of all kinds.
100 GB of extra space costs only 1 Euro per month.
Hubic has its own apps for Android, iPhone and programs to synchronize files on Windows, Mac and Linux PCs.
Finally, I remember that to save photos in a secure way no cloud service is needed because now there is an app that wins over all, Google Photos with its unlimited backup from smartphone and PC .
The speech is also similar for music, thanks to the Google Music app to upload songs and music online from the PC.
